Experiments were concerned with the ocular following responses of human subjects elicited by transient ramp movements of the visual scene. Such tracking movements normally aid the stabilization of gaze and thereby help to maintain clear vision. Responses were consistent, although varied in form from one subject to another. Latencies were invariably short, a typical value with a good stimulus being about 75 msec. Tracking was transiently enhanced after saccadic eye movements, the responses generated in the immediate wake of a saccade being on average about twice the amplitude of those generated half a second later: postsaccadic enhancement. A small part of this enhancement was shown to result from the visual disturbance created by the antecedent saccade since ocular following responses were also slightly enhanced after saccade-like shifts of the scene. These saccade-like shifts also elicit transient ocular following responses while the visual disturbance associated with real saccades do not, suggesting the existence of an extraretinal mechanism that prevents the tracking of saccades. Partitioning the scene into separate central and peripheral regions showed that en masse movement was not the best stimulus: the inphase motion in the surround had a suppressive effect. This indicates that the system has developed some special features to facilitate the tracking of objects.